Cost per person, $3.50
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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I think Texmex needs some form of corn. But it's definitely a lasagna. One of the few acceptable types of casserole.
To me at least, tex-mex is basically "Taco seasoning" and minimal traditional Spanish elements. I wouldn't say corn is a requirement.
I grew up in San Diego. Most definitely not Mexican food that people in Texas would recognize as Texmex but, according to many, would fit your description. The key difference between Texas and San Diego Mexican food is that Texas uses corn and San Diego avoids it except for corn tortillas.
Interesting. Traditional Mexican food has a lot of corn-based dishes (corn is the staple of the indigenous peoples of Central America). For example tamales, pozole, elote, and atole all contain corn in various forms. San Diego Mexican food eschews a lot of these traditional dishes?
Which is why corn is what separates texmex from San Diego style. Literally the only corn in San Diego mex food is the masa flour. So you get it in tortillas and tamales but You never see kernels of corn anywhere. You won't find it in the salsa or any other form. This may have changed in the 20 years since I left but if you wanted street corn you had to go to Tijuana because you weren't going to find it in San Diego.
I don't know how this happened. It's a culinary oddity. And I don't know what it looks like between Texas and San Diego. Everyone knows about the green versus red wars of New Mexico, but I don't know what their corn status is.
We need to get the Irish, and the Mexicans together with the Asians.
Get some corn, and potatoes, and rice. I'm sure they can hybrid up a cheap but delicious dish! Maybe get some chicken in there.
Speaking as a born and raised Texan, I wouldn’t describe corn as a TexMex staple at all, outside of vegetarian dishes or corn tortillas.
Maybe you have a few kernels in the rice depending on the restaurant, but it’s far from universal and more typical of cuisine from countries south of Mexico (e.g. Salvadorean).
You can generally assume that anywhere serving proper elote is going to be a more true-Mexican street taco type of establishment.
Tijuana street tacos contain no kernels of corn. They're on corn tortillas, but that's the extent of it.
From New England but I lived in Texas for awhile in the early 2000s and to me Tex-Mex is Mexican food made by gringos for gringos and Mexican restaurants were Meixcan food made by Abuelas.
You need to visit a Robertos taco shop in San Diego.